32 yr old Female. Long Journey to Clear Skin. Active Fx for Hyperpigmentation/Acne Scaring

32 year old Female with a long history of cystic acne throughout my teens up until about a year ago. After being a guinea pig for many different medications and products, my skin has finally responded to a mixture of Epiduo and Spironolactone. My skin has always been hard to treat because it is not very consistent. I usually would have fairly clear skin, although very oily most of the time, and then I would get a breakout of horribly painful cysts that would last sometimes up to a month or longer. When they would finally heal I would end up with red spot as a reminder, or sometimes an actual scar, although thankfully, usually just the reddish hyperpigmentation. Now that my skin is clear I have undergone a series of VI Peels to clear up my little zit souvenirs and help even out my skin tone. While that has helped a lot, I still am aware of the the scars and spots and have decided under recommendation of my provider to undergo the Active Fx procedure. Now that my skin is clear, I pretty much hate face makeup, probably because I've had to cake it on over the years. I am hoping after the Active Fx I can get away with just sunscreen.

Today is the day. Got my antibiotic and antiviral. Nervous it's going to be really painful. I don't plan on taking any pain meds, but I will be taking half an ativan right before the procedure for nerves. Took before pics.

So.. yesterday was the day of procedure. I just feel the need to be completely honest in this review, the procedure was VERY painful. I have tattoos and have had smart lipo of my neck, entire abdomen, and flanks in the past (which was a breeze). I consider myself to have a pretty high pain tolerance, and it took me about 40 min. to recover after the procedure, because I was shaking and trying to find my bearings. Mind you, I had 0 pain medication before or after, because I was told it wasn't needed and not usually prescribed. It is definitely needed. I feel like more of the Doctors in theses offices need to get this done themselves and see what the patient is actually going through. It makes me wonder because I was offered but took 0 pain medication before or after the smart lipo on my neck and while I was a little uncomfortable, I didn't experience anything close to what I did yesterday. Okay, so now that I have thoroughly scared you if you are reading this (sorry!), I WILL say once the procedure was over and the extreme burning feeling subsided about an hour and a half later, I have felt 0 pain since then. My skin just feels super dry and goopy, but zero pain. So all in all it looks like you just need to get through the first few hours of the procedure.